Janet was eating her breakfast very deliberately next morning, lingering even after Cousin Jasper had left them and while Oliver sat back in his chair fidgeting in frank impatience. When her brother finally urged her to make haste she broke forth into an explanation that was almost a wail.
"It is because I can't forget where we have to go to-day," she declared. "Oh, why—why did I make such a terrible mistake and carry that miserable picture away?"
Even Oliver looked none too cheerful at the prospect before them.
"We have to do it," he agreed, "but I think we will go over to the Windy Hill first. I promised Polly's father I would tell him what I saw from the boat. But after that there will be plenty of time and we will go to Anthony Crawford's."
"I ought to go alone," Janet said, "for it was I who made the trouble. And shall we tell the Beeman?"
"Not until afterward," replied Oliver. "If there is difficulty about the picture it would be easier if no one were concerned but just ourselves. And indeed you won't go alone! We are in this thing together."
It had rained in the night so heavily that the clumps of larkspur and more tender plants were beaten down and only the shower-loving lilies lifted their wet, shining faces above the green. The sky was still overcast, with threats of another downpour, yet the two put on their raincoats and set forth undeterred.
"There is an old apple shed in the corner of the orchard where we can leave the car," said Oliver. "Polly showed me, last time, where we could drive in."
The highway was smooth and wet and the river was perceptibly higher under the bridge. They pressed onward, up the grass-covered road, drove through the gap in the orchard wall, and felt their way along the open lane between the apple trees. The car was finally housed in the shelter of the shed and Janet and Oliver raced up the hill, for the first drops of a new shower were just beginning to fall, and Polly, in the doorway of the cottage, was beckoning them to make haste. The downpour was a sharp one that pattered on the roof, ran streaming from the eaves, and blotted out the hills opposite. The grass and the orchard, however, seemed to grow greener every moment under the refreshing rain, and the clumps of pink hollyhocks that crowded about the doorstep lifted their heads gratefully.
"We can't do much with the bees for an hour or two," observed the Beeman, sitting down in the corner with his pipe. "Now tell me what you saw on the river, Oliver. I noticed your sail and knew that you were out."